Alexander Binder: Glass Delusion and the Prism of Photographic Mysticism

The fact of all matters is that my body is a glass vessel, which spreads light from my eyes and mouth, projecting an interior system of knowledge that compels itself towards disbelief and an inability to be communicable.

It is not a delusion or disorder as had since been reported. The fact of all matters is that my body is a glass vessel, which spreads light from my eyes and mouth, projecting an interior system of knowledge that compels itself towards disbelief and an inability to be communicable. Its as if the prism of this learning had fled from the mouth of God to the ears of his deaf children. In all matters of unspoken and misunderstood dialogues, the might I project comes from a vast interior pool where bursts of colorful luminosity play along the pool’s edge inside my body. This is a series of refractions, not reflections, and in so, it is also a series of gem-like disseminations of my whole being and that of my spirit.

The pain of this incorrectly labeled “Glass Delusion” is that my light, which emits casually from my embodiment, once seen flesh, is that the system of my corpus and vigor cannot be transmitted to others with total meaning. When Teresa of Avila communed with God in orgiastic rapture, she set in course, with several other mystics like Francis of Assisi, a system of interior faiths that cannot be spread to a vast colony of sheep. This partial necromancy is uncomfortable for many and the pineal effect, the secretion of above average amounts of serotonin, is almost always held as the culprit in the sealed casket of forgiveness for those who wish to pardon the mystic’s transcendental status. It is the entombment of order they wish to emulate. This colony purports to damn those whom they cannot understand, those few that can hear the calling. When God said, “the dead speak for the living”, his words were thus cancelled by the shouting abuse of the crowd whose small frames and recessed collective cortex could not reprieve an understanding without direct symbol. “It shall be written” were words salvaged to restore order amongst the frightened flock.

This partial necromancy is uncomfortable for many and the pineal effect, the secretion of above average amounts of serotonin, is almost always held as the culprit in the sealed casket of forgiveness for those who wish to pardon the mystic’s transcendental status.

You see, as glass, my function is to transmit the inner unknown of a language too old and ingrained for the larger populace to understand. I am a prism of self and what has always existed before me, but could never be spoken about in words is to be spread through my actions, my body, my image. It is not for a fear of breaking, for breaking would be a concept that you could understand. It is for a fear that my whole be reduced to the sands that form it and its ability to bend and transform the inner light and secret teachings into that of communicable chatter. Light bends and glass need not break. This is transmission without enmity. This is a towering pillar of white light, my vessel its channel.

I have been following the work of Alexander Binder for a few years. He tends to get relegated, like fellow artist Tereza Zelenkova, into a perversion of words understood as “occult” in practice. This language, its terminology, is a pigeonhole for the efforts of the masses; they do not understand the linguistic or historic context of the occult. What the occult stems from is that of mysticism. Mysticism has many forms. Its genesis is formed from several traditions Jewish Cabbalism, Christian eschatology, Egyptian and Babylonian spirituality and of that of several earlier Pagan traditions. The limp language of occultism has been used to employ, in artistic circles a series of loose metaphors, which are generally misinformed and could be seen rather of the aesthetics of “occult symbolism”. This conceptual framework, is a throwback to Nineteenth century ruminations on the mystic tradition, which became “occult” as a generalization for “other” and “dark” spirituality. Spectators revel in the need to speak of these practices, or images, as something that is relatable. The point of work like Binder’s or Zelenkova’s is that it may draw from a history of images, but its communicable presence should not be spoken of easily, or at all. That is the standard of which mysticism creates its unspeakable rapport with higher institutions of spirituality.

When I consider the function of glass or that of the prism (which binder uses in his analog process), I decidedly consider this state as a potential transcendental possibility…

When I speak of the “Glass Delusion”, my reference point is to that of a clinical study in which people feel as though their bodies are made from glass and are inherently vulnerable. When I consider the function of glass or that of the prism (which binder uses in his analog process), I decidedly consider this state as a potential transcendental possibility. Though photography has been miscalculated by and large into notions of “representation”, it should be pointed out with undue clarity and conviction, that the medium itself is void of a language of its own and that its powers of communication should be staunched unless we rely heavily on flock forms of articulation. The prism it presents, the glass of the prism in the camera itself, are analogous to that of bodies of glass and should perhaps best be considered as luminous ponderabilities over that of strict methodologies of meaning. Binder’s work, full of chromophilia, and that of spirited analogy and it should serve to remind us of potential and for that of a photograph as transcendental meaning. It is thus, my most coveted photography book of the year in its qualification as unspeakable language and the glory of the potentially transcendental image.